If you’ve found yourself unhappy with your marriage, take a few minutes to think about your thoughts. What do you allow in your mental space daily. Are your thoughts constantly negative? Do you always have a criticism to give out to your spouse? Would you say you can easily be put in a bad mood?

I feel like we can so easily and often forget that our thoughts have power. Where goes our thoughts so goes our actions. That’s why Paul exhorts us in scripture to “Take every thought captive.” If we are constantly dwelling on negative thoughts, or even just allowing them to make a home in our hearts, we are preparing the soil of our marriage for bitterness to take root. When bitterness takes root, it’s like a sickness and infects you to your core.

The antidote is…

…thankfulness.

When we’re thankful, we allow the Lord to fill our homes with JOY. What if we all remembered that joy is rooted in thankfulness? That we cannot have one without the other? I think our homes would be happier, marriages would be healthier, and livelihoods would flourish.

Something that Troy and I have implemented is, every night before bed we talk through three things that we are thankful for. Some nights it’s serious and deep, other nights it’s silly and light, and others its a mix of both. However, no matter the night or the mood, we always go to bed with our hearts full.

So my challenge to you is this: make thankfulness a priority in your home. Be intentionally with verbalizing what you are thankful for, especially to your spouse. If you do that, I know that you will feel a new level of peace enter your home and joy will flow abundantly.